Cuomo takes high midterm grades into new year

Muzzio credits Cuomo for bringing fiscal restraint to Albany, establishing a cap on property tax growth, leading New York through tropical storms Irene and Lee that battered upstate in 2011 and Sandy that slammed New York City, Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley.

“The only negative: Awful redistricting,” Muzzio said.

Cuomo ticked off his 2013 objectives in what he brazenly called his “litmus test” for lawmakers to win his support. They include raising the minimum wage, campaign finance reform including voluntary public financing of campaigns, restrictions on police stop-and-frisk procedures that critics say impinge on civil rights, climate change initiatives, further protecting abortion rights, “limited and highly regulated casinos” to boost jobs and tax revenues.

He’ll add to that in his State of the State.

He didn’t mention the heated question of whether he will allow the expansion of drilling into a huge deposit of natural gas in the Southern Tier using the contentious hydrofracking process.

“As governor, I have specific programs and progressive initiatives that I believe must be continued or enacted,” Cuomo said earlier this month in his stern “litmus test” statement. “I will give or withhold my support based on an individual legislator’s support of those issues.”